


And He Makes Three

by icarus_chained



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Family, Ficlet Collection, Marriage, Multi, Older Characters, Polyamory, Prompt Fic, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 22:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam/Sybil/Havelock, making a relationship work in ways little and large, from early trysts to an established relationship. Five prompt ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And He Makes Three

**Days**

Their 'trysts', as Sybil insisted on calling the damn things, were mostly in the daytime. Assassin or no assassin, Havelock was a bit long in the tooth these days to be climbing in their bedroom window at night, and Sam certainly wasn't climbing in _his_. Be a fine way to end up dead, that would. 

So they'd dithered about for a few weeks, Havelock coolly impassive and Sam snarlingly frustrated, before Sybil took them both gently by the ear and pointed out that they were too old for all this farting around, and anyone trying to use them against each other at this stage would have their work cut out for them, so why couldn't they use front doors like normal people for a change?

One of these days, Sam thought idly, watching the sunlight play over Havelock's calloused hands as they smoothed over Sybil's waist, there would be something Sybil _wasn't_ right about. This, though, had definitely not been one of them.

 

**Children**

"Where's young Sam?" Sam asked, coming into the dragon pens and doing his best to stomp without actually making any noise. Sybil, her arms full of cantankerous dragon, didn't so much as look up.

"Playing hide and seek with Havelock," she huffed absently, one hand busy doing something unmentionable down at the dragon's other end. Sam averted his gaze with the ease of long habit, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"He's play-" he started, and then stopped. Turned that thought over very, _very_ carefully, and tried to decide if he liked it or if he would like to take a small moment to panic now. "Hide and seek," he repeated flatly. "With _Havelock Vetinari_."

Because their nice assassin-trained lover, who'd once driven a man insane(-er) by the judicious use of secret passages and a deadpan delivery, was _obviously_ the best person for their young son to be playing hide and seek with.

Although, now that you mentioned it ...

"Yes dear," Sybil said, and Sam could hear her smiling, he didn't even have to be looking. "He thought it'd be educational for Sam. Some good honest fun for a growing boy."

... "Right," Sam said faintly. Trying to put 'Havelock Vetinari' and 'honest fun' in the same thought, and faltering just a little. "I'm sure ... I'm sure they'll be fine, then. Absolutely fine."

Well. Young Sam was a tough lad, wasn't he? And it was never too early to learn to be wary of your uncle Havelock.

 

**Fingers**

Their hands were curled loosely together, Sybil's palm cupping the back of Havelock's hand protectively, her fingers threaded gently through his. Sam, lying with his chin on Sybil's stomach, couldn't stop staring at them.

"... How'd you ever fool anybody?" he asked abruptly, leaning over to run his own fingers lightly over theirs, tracing them with an odd reverence. "Either of you. How'd you ever fool anyone?"

They blinked at him, Sybil looking him askance and Havelock lazily raising an eyebrow from where his head lay cradled on her shoulder. He gave an excellent impression of someone who was not going to move for anything short of an invasion, and with the pleasant ache in his own lower back, Sam couldn't exactly blame him.

"Whatever do you mean, Sir Samuel?" the man asked, with that deadly little shimmer in his voice. Sam grunted, wishing absently for the days when that wouldn't have gone straight to his groin.

"Mmm," Sybil agreed. "I don't recall having ever tried to fool anyone, dear."

Sam snorted gently, carefully turning their hands until they lay palms up atop his, nested together with Havelock's on top. Tracing the callouses that spread across three sets of fingertips, from weapons and pens and pitchforks and dragon scales, all the little stories of life written across them, and very few of them easy. A Duke, a Duchess and a Patrician. At least, that was the theory.

"Fine bunch of nobs we are," was all he said, and he rather thought their matching grins in return were worth more than all the gold or titles in the universe.

 

**Carpet**

"... Sir?"

Sam looked up at the hesitant voice, laboriously pulling his head up out of his hands to glare blearily at his office door, and found the concerned, earnest face of Captain Carrot looking back him.

He gave a moment's thought to just dropping his head back down again, but decided that wouldn't be fair to the man. Or practical, either, given how stubborn Carrot could be when he took a notion.

"Yes, Captain?" he managed, with a half-decent impression of composure. "What is it?"

Carrot hesitated for a second, and then apparently decided sod it. "Are you alright, sir? Because you don't normally come back from the Palace looking so ..." He hunted around for a diplomatic word, settled on: "So unsettled, sir. Ah. Forgive me for asking, but did something happen?"

Sam stared at him for a long minute, and then said, distantly and hollowly: "Carpets."

Carrot blinked. That was it, that was all. Damned man did inscrutable about as well as Have-- as He Who Shall Not Currently Be Named did. "Carpets, sir?" And it didn't even sound like Carrot was considering calling Igor, either. Well done, that man.

"He called me up to talk about carpets," Sam explained. Dully, at first, and then with a rising note of incredulous outrage. "The Patrician of Ankh-bloody-Morpork just called me into the Palace. To talk about _carpets_. The carpets we're putting in the bloody study. Because _my wife_ asked him to remind me." He forced his hands back onto the desk, to keep from clutching at his hair. "They're bloody ganging up on me! D'you understand? There's nowhere in the city I could hide from both of them. What am I supposed to do?!"

There was a long, long pause, while Sam stared wildly up at Carrot and Carrot stared back in vague alarm. And then, with the exquisite care of a man who thought he was holding one of Cheery's more temperamental concoctions, Carrot back towards the door and said: "I'll get Fred, shall I? I'll go get Fred. He'll have a much better idea what ... what to do about this." He nodded with determined cheer. "That's right. I'll go get Fred."

It was probably the first time, Sam thought, that Carrot had ever taken the better part of valour on his account. This? This was what marriage got you. And _one_ spouse was bad enough. 

It said something about the universe, he thought grimly, that of all the people in it, it was Sam Vimes who'd ended up with _two_.

 

**Space/Stars**

Havelock stood silently at the study window, looking down on the expanse of yellow stars in the darkness that was Morpork across the river. His hands were clasped loosely behind his back and his head had sunk gently towards his chest. He made no sound.

Sam glanced at Sybil, saw the echo of his own concern clearly written in her face, and cleared his throat uneasily.

"Alright over there?" he asked gruffly, coming a few steps further into the room and ignoring Sybil's huff of exasperation beside him. "You've been standing here in the dark for a while now."

Havelock stirred faintly. Vaguely surprised, Sam thought, to realise they were there, and the thought sent another bolt of alarm through him. Havelock didn't _do_ surprise. Not like this.

"I'm fine." Havelock Vetinari, ex-assassin and now ex-Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, turned to face them, a pensive but oddly peaceful expression on his face. "I was just ... considering the change of scenery. This is not my usual view of the city."

Sam frowned, wondering what the hell that was about, when Havelock'd looked out the study window any number of times over the past few years. But Sybil made a soft 'oh' sound behind him, and Havelock offered her a faint smile.

"I had thought, Sir Samuel," he explained gently, dropping back into an old formality, "that I should die in office, like my predecessors." He smiled a little grimly in the darkness. "Retirement is not usually an option for a tyrant. And no-one lives forever. Even without ... individuals who wish to speed them on their way."

Sam blinked, long and slow, feeling his face shutter automatically and an odd tightness clutch at his chest. His answer emerged in a rough, raw growl, tugged out of him: "They'd not have got you. Not on my bloody watch, they wouldn't!" 

"Nor mine," Sybil agreed, very quietly, but with all the steel of her considerable ancestry behind her. She stepped up beside him, her face pale and determined in the light of the city through the window, their own set of stars to make promises on. 

Havelock looked at them for a second and then ... then he smiled, a far softer thing than any they'd ever seen before, and walked silently across to join them.

"No," he agreed quietly, a free man at last. "Apparently not."


End file.
